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Community Change

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First 5 LA is committed to making meaningful change in the communities we serve.

Our 2009-2015 Strategic Plan represents a major shift in the way First 5 LA works to achieve our goal of enhancing the lives of expectant parents, children ages prenatal to 5 and their families. To understand the kinds of change that occur in our communities, our 2009-2015 Accountability and Learning Framework reflects this emphasis on place-based evaluation combined with countywide approaches. It also reflects First 5 LA's strengthened emphasis on using results from our evaluations and research projects to learn and improve our work on an ongoing basis.

The major types of activities we will engage in during the life of the Strategic Plan are:

  1. Place-based and strategic evaluations
  2. Research projects
  3. Dissemination activities
  4. Research Advisory Committee
  5. Learning and improvement process

Our plan for change
Our 2009-2015 Strategic Plan is based on a theory of change that shows how the activities we undertake in our 14 communities will lead to change in our four priority areas.

See a diagram of First 5 LA's theory of change (pdf) 

Best Start is First 5 LA's place-based funding effort in 14 high-need communities in Los Angeles County. Through Best Start, parents, church groups, businesses, local officials, nonprofits and others work together to build foundations for infants and young children, making our communities stronger.

Our place-based evaluations are designed to help us observe change in our 14 target communities for children and families, partner organizations and at the community level.

Learn more about our Best Start Evaluation »

Best Start website »

First 5 LA is committed to ongoing learning and improvement through evaluation. Generally, studies focus on program implementation, describing what is happening, identifying barriers and opportunities to change and documenting outcomes.

Read descriptions of our Program Evaluations »

Research and evaluation provide valuable tools for improving outcomes for children in our community by informing policy makers, researchers and practitioners about how our children learn, grow and develop. In addition to the work we do within our Accountability Plan to monitor the effectiveness of our Strategic Plan, we conduct primary research with a wide range of partners to enrich the early childhood body of knowledge.

Learn more about our Research Partners »

For more information, please contact the Research and Evaluation Department at F5LAResearch@First5LA.org.